Page:Discipline in school and cloister (1902).djvu/84

 came swish, swish, swish, on me! yet I felt, spite of the terrible stinging pain, that I deserved it all—and it was painful! I was a stout fair girl, and very sensitive to pain. I screamed, I protested, I implored, but it was of no avail; Mrs. — heeded not my cries, but held me down and birched on till she had finished a whipping which seemed to have lasted an age, but which quite changed my character. At last it was over. I was permitted to rise, my hands were unbound, and, burning and smarting, I raised my tear-stained face to my true friend's, on whose face no sign was visible of the slightest anger or passion. Calm and serene, she wished me good-night and left me conquered. Henceforward I was a different girl; and though a few weeks afterwards I relapsed, yet another night spent in Mrs. —'s dressing-room and another similar application by her of that wonder-working birch—I did exactly as she told me this time—sufficed finally to cure me. I became cheerful, obedient, unselfish. My parents and friends the next holidays could hardly believe that I was the same girl. I stayed three years at Brighton, leaving when I was nineteen with much regret. I am now